IPO Access Is Not the Same as IPO Opportunity

Disclaimer: this article is for informational and analytical purposes only. It does not constitute financial advice, investment advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security.

Key Takeaways

Introduction: The Democratization Story Has a Catch

The IPO market is often presented as a democratization story. A private company grows, builds a strong business, reaches scale, and eventually allows public investors to participate in the next phase of its expansion. In theory, that sounds fair. In practice, the picture is more complicated.

The recent SpaceX IPO and the proposed Bending Spoons listing point to a broader shift in how public markets interact with high-growth private companies. Public investors are not always entering early. In many cases, they arrive after years of private-market value creation have already been capitalized into the price.

The point is not that these companies are weak businesses. SpaceX is arguably one of the most strategically important companies in the world. Bending Spoons is one of Europe's most interesting technology stories, with a disciplined acquisition-led model and improving profitability.

Still, business quality and entry price are two different questions. Mixing them up is expensive.

The Core Problem: Public Investors Often Enter After the Re-Rating

For many companies, the IPO used to be the moment when public investors could access a growth story while a meaningful part of that growth was still ahead. Today, for the strongest private companies, much of the value creation often happens before the IPO.

Venture funds, private equity investors, founders, employees and early institutional backers participate while the company is still private. By the time the company lists, the valuation may already reflect years of expected growth. The public market is then asked to validate that private-market valuation.

That is the main issue with some high-profile IPOs. They are not necessarily designed to give new investors an attractive entry point. They are often designed to transform private value into public liquidity, public visibility and public comparability.

The question is no longer: "Is this a great company?" The question becomes: "How much of the future is already priced in?"

SpaceX: A Generational Company at a Very Aggressive Valuation

SpaceX is not an ordinary company. It combines launch services, satellite communications, defense exposure, Starlink, AI infrastructure ambitions, and the strategic premium attached to Elon Musk. That makes it difficult to value. But "difficult to value" does not mean "impossible to overpay for."

According to Reuters, SpaceX set its IPO price at $135 per share in an offering reported as all-primary, meaning the proceeds go to the company rather than directly to selling shareholders. Reuters explicitly confirmed this structure in its pre-IPO reporting, which makes the offering cleaner than a classic exit-driven listing. It still leaves the same valuation question for new buyers. SpaceX raised $75 billion at a valuation of roughly $1.75 trillion, against 2025 revenue of $18.67 billion and a net loss of $4.94 billion.

The Bull Case, and Why It Is Not Enough by Itself

A reasonable bullish argument is that revenue multiples are too narrow for a company like SpaceX. The argument goes like this: Starlink has near-monopoly-level network effects in some markets, the launch business has structural cost advantages that incumbents cannot replicate quickly, and Starship, if it becomes reliably reusable at scale, could transform the economics of orbital access entirely. Viewed through that lens, revenue today understates the terminal value, and traditional multiples miss the point.

That argument deserves attention. SpaceX is not a weak speculative business. Its strategic position is real, its technology is real, and the market potential across Starlink, defense, cargo, and eventually crewed missions is genuinely large.

The problem is that the valuation already appears to price in much of that upside. Morningstar's analysis shows that even in its most optimistic scenario, to which it assigned only a 7% probability, SpaceX is worth $154 per share. That is marginally above the IPO price of $135, and well below the first-day close of $160.95. That means the first-day market price was already above Morningstar's most optimistic scenario. Saying "revenue multiples are the wrong metric" does not solve the valuation problem. It moves the debate to future execution, which has to be even stronger than the current price already assumes.

The Lock-Up Risk That Most Retail Buyers Ignore

A second risk receives less attention than the valuation: lock-up expiration. In a typical IPO, existing shareholders, including founders, employees, early venture investors and late-stage private backers, are restricted from selling for roughly 180 days after listing. A small relative float can amplify this dynamic.

When insider shares become available after lock-up expiry, the market may need to absorb a much larger supply of stock. If the price at expiry is still far above fundamental fair value, early investors have strong incentives to sell. That selling pressure can reprice the stock sharply. A retail buyer who paid $160 at listing and holds through lock-up expiry may see the market test lower levels, not because SpaceX failed as a business, but because supply dynamics normalized.

Reuters reported that analysts and portfolio managers warned investors to expect volatility, citing both the high valuation and the small float. Those are not just abstract warnings. They describe a visible mechanical risk around future supply.

The Short-Term Trade Is the Most Dangerous Position

Many retail investors may simplify the trade: SpaceX is finally public, demand is high, so buying immediately should produce a quick gain. That logic is fragile.

At more than 90x trailing revenue at IPO and above 100x revenue after the first trading day, SpaceX is not priced like a traditional aerospace or telecom company. A short-term buyer is not underwriting cash flows. They are underwriting sentiment, effectively betting that someone else will pay an even higher price in the near future. Momentum can reverse quickly, especially when the float expands.

A long-term investor who believes in SpaceX's 10 to 20 year strategic role can construct a coherent thesis. A short-term trader who buys because "it just listed" is taking an entirely different risk, one that is mostly about momentum and the scarcity premium on a constrained float.

Existing Shareholders Benefit Without Selling

One nuance worth noting: even in an all-primary offering, existing holders still benefit materially. The IPO creates a public mark for their shares. A private stake becomes easier to value, easier to finance against, and easier to sell once lock-up restrictions expire. The benefit to early investors is valuation crystallization: the ability to use a public reference price, not just immediate cash. For new investors, that same public reference price can be dangerous if it already assumes most of the upside.

SpaceX: What Different Scenarios Imply

Morningstar's scenario analysis illustrates how much optimism is required to justify the IPO price. The chart below shows Morningstar's valuation estimates across scenarios, compared to the IPO price and the first-day close.

The base case fair value at $63 implies that, at the IPO price, investors are paying more than twice what Morningstar considers a reasonable central estimate. The "Moonshot" scenario at $154 per share assumes reliably reusable Starship, aggressive Starlink scaling, and a real commercial market for orbital infrastructure. It barely clears the IPO price and does not justify the first-day close. Morningstar assigned that scenario a 7% probability.

Bending Spoons: A More Grounded Story, But Not Simple

Bending Spoons is a different type of IPO. It is not a moonshot aerospace and AI infrastructure narrative. It is a software and digital-products platform built around acquisitions, operational restructuring and monetization improvement. The company acquires digital businesses such as WeTransfer, Vimeo, Evernote, AOL, Eventbrite and others, transforms them, and reinvests into additional acquisitions.

According to Reuters, Bending Spoons filed for a Nasdaq IPO targeting a valuation of at least $20 billion. The company reported $601 million in revenue and $27.5 million in net income for Q1 2026, compared with $259 million in revenue and a $112.2 million net loss one year earlier. That is a significant operational improvement, and unlike SpaceX, Bending Spoons is already profitable.

Why the Revenue Multiple Depends on Which Period You Use

When assessing the valuation, you can calculate the revenue multiple two ways, and the result changes substantially depending on which figure you choose. Both are useful, but they answer different questions. A company could emphasize whichever one makes the valuation look more attractive. The table below shows both explicitly.

Neither number is wrong. The 15x figure anchors the valuation to what the company delivered over a full year. The 8.3x figure reflects the current growth rate and gives credit for rapid improvement. A disciplined investor looks at both, understands the difference, and asks whether the current trajectory is sustainable enough to justify the forward multiple.

The Roll-Up Risk That the Revenue Growth Does Not Capture

Bending Spoons is not a standard SaaS company with organic growth. It is a capital-allocation machine. Its future depends on a chain of assumptions: finding attractive acquisition targets, acquiring them at reasonable prices, improving them operationally, retaining users after restructuring, managing debt and integration complexity, and convincing public markets that the model is repeatable at larger scale.

Each of those assumptions is individually reasonable. Together they create compounding execution risk. Roll-up models often work well at smaller scale, and become harder to manage as the asset base grows. Public investors are not only buying the existing portfolio. They are buying the company's future ability to keep compounding through acquisitions.

Reuters also reported that both the company and some stockholders plan to sell shares in the offering, making the liquidity component more direct than in SpaceX's all-primary structure. That does not automatically make the deal problematic, but it means incentives are less neutral.

SpaceX vs. Bending Spoons: A Side-by-Side View

These two IPOs should not be treated as the same type of investment. The risks, valuation anchors and analytical approach are different.

The IPO Is Not the Opportunity. The Price Is.

The main lesson from SpaceX and Bending Spoons is clear: IPO access is not the same as IPO opportunity. Getting access to a famous company does not automatically mean getting an attractive investment.

SpaceX may become one of the most important companies of the next century. But buying it at more than 90x revenue, or above 100x revenue after the first trading day, is not a simple short-term trade. It is a high-expectation bet where much of the future already seems priced in, and where lock-up expiry could create a supply event that current buyers need to consider.

Bending Spoons may be one of Europe's strongest software stories. But if it lists at around $20 billion, investors still need to ask whether they are buying a compounding machine or paying upfront for years of successful acquisitions that still need to happen. The revenue multiple looks more reasonable than SpaceX's, but it depends significantly on which revenue period you use. The roll-up model also adds execution risk that a simple revenue comparison does not capture.

The IPO market is changing. Public investors are increasingly invited later, at higher valuations, after private investors have captured much of the initial upside. Public investors can still make money, but the discipline required is higher.

The question should never be: "Is this a great company?" The question should be: "At this valuation, is this still a great investment?"

Sources and Further Reading

• Reuters: SpaceX IPO pricing, all-primary structure, and $75 billion raise.
• Reuters: SpaceX Nasdaq debut, day-one close at $160.95 and $2.1 trillion market value.
• Reuters: Bending Spoons Nasdaq IPO filing, $20 billion valuation target, Q1 2026 financials.
• Morningstar: SpaceX fair value estimate at $63/share; scenario analysis including "Moonshot" case at $154/share.